Pitch Perfect: "The Robot Ump"

The foundations of baseball have largely remained the same since Babe Ruth swung a bat. Nine innings make a game. Three strikes and you’re out. And the ultimate authority on all pitches is the home plate umpire. We won’t be able to say that last one in a few days.

Players’ opinions have been a bit more mixed, though many say they’re open to giving it a shot. Catchers, in particular, have been interesting to hear from, because some have made a living by fooling umpires using a technique known as framing — where they shift their gloves and their bodies to make borderline pitches look more like strikes.

On Wednesday, when the San Francisco Giants’ starter tosses out the first pitch of the Major League Baseball season, players will — for the first time — have the chance to overrule the umpire’s call of a ball or a strike. The new higher power will be a network of specialized cameras set up in every ballpark to track the baseball’s exact location. It’s officially called the Automated Ball-Strike (A.B.S.) Challenge System. Many fans call it the robot ump.

It’s a major change for a sport steeped so deeply in tradition, and some players have expressed reservations. But baseball officials insist that the A.B.S. system will help rid the game of something that even traditionalists despise bad calls.

How it works

Teams will begin every game with two challenges — opportunities to summon the robot umpire and see whether the human behind home plate missed a ball or strike call. If a challenge is successful, the team can use it again. After two misses, though, it loses the power altogether.

Only the pitcher, catcher or batter can challenge a call, and they have to do so almost immediately, without help from teammates or coaches. The signal is a tap on the head, which effectively tells the ump: I think you’re wrong. A few seconds later, a graphic appears on the outfield screen showing whether the pitch was in fact a ball or a strike.

Fans might find the whole charade a bit strange on television. But when I witnessed the A.B.S. system in person, at a few spring training games this month in Florida, I was surprised by how much tension it introduced to the stadium.

People looked up from their phones, and the crowd collectively held its breath awaiting the results. Once, when the screen showed that the human behind the plate was correct — the pitch had indeed been a ball, by just a fraction of an inch — a fan couldn’t help but shout to the umpire how impressed he was. It may have been the first time that ump had heard a compliment from the bleachers.

How fans and players feel

M.L.B. officials say polls suggest that fans overwhelmingly support the challenge system, and my experience backed that up. Of the roughly two dozen I spoke to at spring training, nearly all said they liked the A.B.S. system, or at least were not against it. Only two, a father and son, disliked it. It wasn’t so much the challenge system they objected to, but rather the creeping intrusion of technology into the sport.

The Giants’ Patrick Bailey widely considered the best defensive catcher in the game, initially worried that A.B.S. would devalue his skills. But he now says he’s excited to see how he and other catchers can take advantage of the system. During spring training, catchers proved far better than batters at deciding when to call for the robot to step in. Bailey has been among the best, winning 10 of his first 12 challenges.

What’s next?

If robot umps are here to stay, does that mean that human umps are on the road to extinction? It’s a reasonable question, especially since tennis, which uses the same exact camera technology as A.B.S., has replaced line judges entirely at most major tournaments.

Baseball officials seem open to the idea. They have tested fully automated strike-calling in the minor leagues, and the M.L.B. commissioner, Rob Manfred, has described the challenge system as a “first step.” But a vast majority of the minor-leaguers who tried both systems told M.L.B. that they opposed full automation. And a survey by my colleagues at The Athletic found similar results with big leaguers.

Remember the father and son I spoke to during spring training? Many players agree with them: They want the game’s human touch to be preserved. “Can we just play baseball?” the star pitcher Max Scherzer once asked my colleague Jayson Stark. “We’re humans. Can we just be judged by humans?”

-Matthew Cullen, NY Times

Bobby Jenks

 

Bobby Jenks, a two-time All-Star and 2005 World Series champion with the White Sox, passed away on July 4 after a battle with adenocarcinoma, a form of stomach cancer. He was 44.

In Game 4 of the 2005 World Series against the Astros, Jenks earned the save with a scoreless ninth inning, inducing a game-ending groundout off the bat of Orlando Palmeiro to end an 88-year championship drought.

“We have lost an iconic member of the White Sox family today,” said White Sox chairman Jerry Reinsdorf. “None of us will ever forget that ninth inning of Game 4 in Houston, all that Bobby did for the 2005 World Series champions and for the entire Sox organization during his time in Chicago.

“He and his family knew cancer would be his toughest battle, and he will be missed as a husband, father, friend, and teammate. He will forever hold a special place in all our hearts.”

There are only a few people in the White Sox clubhouse whose careers overlapped with Jenks, but regardless of the amount of time they shared with him, Jenks made a lasting impact.

“He was a gamer -- this guy gave you everything he had every single time,” said White Sox hitting coach Marcus Thames, a teammate of Jenks’ from the Arizona Fall League. “I saw him last year. He came to the stadium, and I hadn't seen him in so long, and he gave me one of those big old bear hugs.”

During his time in Chicago, Jenks routinely lit up the radar gun -- endearing himself to the fanbase with his very first pitch, a 102-mph fastball.

“Everyone remembers him as a big guy and tough competitor who could throw 100, but he was really a big teddy bear off the field,” said his teammate, Paul Konerko. “Bobby was such a big part of our success and was on the mound at the end of the game for some of the biggest wins in White Sox history. He truly will be missed by all.”

White Sox first base coach Jason Bourgeois was a teammate of Jenks during the club’s 2008 playoff run.

“He was leading by example, calm demeanor, and shoot, [he could] flat out throw the ball,” Bourgeois said. “He embodied the closer role, honestly, he really did. Fun, fun guy, very talkative, communicated great to the young guys, made us feel at home.”

He earned All-Star nods in 2006 and 2007, saving 81 games in that two-year span. At one point in 2007, he retired 41 consecutive batters, which at the time tied a Major League record.

“Bobby Jenks is one of my all-time favorite players,” said his former manager Ozzie Guillén. “I loved that man. This is a very sad day for everyone involved with the White Sox. Everyone remembers the moment when I called for the big fella in the World Series.”

Jenks pitched six seasons with the White Sox from 2005-10, posting a 3.40 ERA across 329 relief appearances and recording 173 saves -- the second-most saves in franchise history behind Bobby Thigpen (201).

“You play for the love of the game, the joy of it,” Jenks said during his last interview with Sox TV in summer 2024. “It’s what I love to do. I’m playing to be a world champion and that’s what I wanted to do from the time I picked up a baseball.”

Bottom of Form

The Mission Hills, Calif., native closed out his seven-year Major League career in 2011, appearing in 19 games with the Red Sox.

“He came to the Major Leagues with some of the biggest expectations and lived up to them,” teammate A.J. Pierzynski said. “Bobby was a larger-than-life figure, and fans related to him. He overcame a lot early in life to have a great playing career, and after his playing days, he did a lot of positive things to help himself and others."

"I was fortunate enough to catch him in some of the biggest games in White Sox history, and I will never forget jumping into his arms after the last out of the World Series. He will be missed by all of his family, friends and teammates.”

In 2024, Jenks returned to baseball to manage the Windy City Thunder Bolts of the Frontier League in Crestwood, Ill., a suburb of Chicago.

“Man, he made it fun,” pitcher Buddie Pindell told MLB.com White Sox beat reporter Scott Merkin in May. “The season didn’t go how we wanted, but it was always a fun time around him.”

The White Sox will have a bittersweet reunion to celebrate the 20-year anniversary of the 2005 World Series team at Rate Field on July 11.

“Everyone has a favorite story about Bobby, so the 2005 reunion will be a great opportunity to get together with all his teammates and coaches and relive some of our greatest memories of him,” Guillén said.

The Rockies paid tribute to Jenks with a moment of silence before Saturday's sold-out game with the White Sox. He is survived by his wife, Eleni Tzitzivacos, their two children, Zeno and Kate, and his four children from a prior marriage, Cuma, Nolan, Rylan and Jackson. He had been living with his wife and his two youngest children in Sintra, Portugal, to be closer to his wife’s family.

-Jared Greenspan and Owen Perkins, MLB

 

Bobby Jenks (March 14, 1981 - July 4, 2025)

Ted Williams, July 3, 1948

 

July 3, 1948. Fenway Park was buzzing like a beehive that night. The kind of Boston summer evening where the thick, humid air wraps itself around you like a wool blanket—hot dogs sizzling on grills, kids chasing fireflies under the bleachers, the crack of the bat echoing against the walls of memory and myth. 

Ted Williams was in left field. Calm. Cool. That swing—the most talked-about swing in baseball—had already done its job that season. He stood tall, glove at his side, the picture of poise under pressure, even when the crowd roared with every pitch and the city carried him like a crown jewel in its sports-obsessed heart.

Then, out of nowhere, the rhythm of the game was broken.

A man leapt the railing. It wasn’t the first time a fan had rushed the field, but something about this one was different. There wasn’t madness in his run—no wild gestures, no flash of chaos. Just purpose. He trotted straight toward The Splendid Splinter, and the stadium, just for a heartbeat, held its breath.

Ted didn’t flinch.

That’s what people who knew him best remember. Not just the .344 career average or the 521 home runs, but moments like this—how he never backed down. From a fastball. From a media storm. From war. And certainly not from a stranger on the grass at Fenway.

The man slowed as he approached. Security was already racing in from both foul lines, but Ted didn’t move. He watched the guy calmly, curiously, as if trying to solve a puzzle in real time.

“You don’t remember me,” the man said, his voice shaky but sincere. “But I was in the service with you.”

Silence. Even the wind seemed to wait.

“I think you’re a great guy,” he added. “And I wanted to tell you so personally.”

And just like that, the intensity melted into something human. Something sacred.

Ted cracked a smile. That famous, mischievous grin that used to flash just before he sent a fastball screaming into the night sky. He laughed—softly, genuinely—and reached out to shake the man’s hand.

They talked for a minute or two. Who knows what was said—maybe old squadron memories, maybe a name mentioned, a face remembered. Whatever passed between them, it was real. Two veterans reconnecting not in a parade or a bar or a VFW hall, but under the lights of a ballfield where thousands had come to see a game… and instead witnessed a moment that transcended sport.

Eventually, the man—Ed Carlson, from nearby Dorchester—was gently escorted off the field. No cuffs. No boos. Just an ovation that rippled through the stands like applause at a play’s final act. Fenway, that night, wasn’t just a ballpark. It was a cathedral of memory.

And Ted? He turned back to left field like nothing had happened. But something had. A game was paused, sure. But more importantly, time had blinked—and when it opened its eyes again, it remembered why baseball is America’s pastime.

Because it’s not just about the runs or the records.

It’s about connection.

It’s about courage.

It’s about moments like this.

#BaseballHistory #TedWilliams #FenwayPark #OnThisDay #MLBStories #VeteranSalute #BaseballLegends #1948Memory #SplendidSplinter #RedSoxForever

  

Sandy Koufax

 

When you speak of legends that transcend baseball, few names resonate with the same awe and reverence as Sandy Koufax, famously known as "The Left Arm of God." Born on December 30, 1935, in Brooklyn, New York, Sanford Koufax wasn’t immediately destined for baseball immortality; in fact, during his early years, he was more focused on basketball, attending the University of Cincinnati on a basketball scholarship. Yet fate had other plans.

Koufax’s baseball career began with flashes of brilliance marred by inconsistency, but what followed over twelve electrifying seasons with the Brooklyn and later Los Angeles Dodgers from 1955 to 1966 would forever alter the landscape of Major League Baseball.

His fastball was a thing of pure, blistering beauty — a sonic boom of a pitch that left batters bewildered — while his devastating curveball broke with such wicked, jaw-dropping sharpness that even the most seasoned hitters were rendered helpless.

It wasn’t merely that Koufax dominated; it was how he dominated. Between 1961 and 1966, he crafted one of the most awe-inspiring stretches of pitching mastery ever witnessed, culminating in four no-hitters — a feat that was almost unthinkable at the time — and a perfect game that etched his name even deeper into baseball lore. Sandy Koufax wasn't just winning games; he was redefining the art of pitching itself, setting standards that future generations would desperately chase but rarely reach.

In 1963, Koufax’s genius fully erupted onto the national stage. That year, he achieved the holy trifecta for a pitcher: winning the pitching Triple Crown by leading the National League in wins, strikeouts, and ERA, and capturing the Cy Young Award — the first of three, each secured by unanimous vote, an astonishing measure of his undisputed supremacy.

That same year, he was named the National League’s Most Valuable Player, a rare honor for a pitcher, proving he was not merely the best on the mound but arguably the best player in the entire league.

His performance in the 1963 World Series was legendary, dismantling the mighty New York Yankees with two complete-game victories, including a record-setting 15-strikeout masterpiece in Game 1 that left even the proudest Bronx Bombers humbled and speechless. Koufax wasn’t just a pitcher; he was a force of nature, and the spectacle of his dominance turned every appearance into a must-watch event.

Yet perhaps what made Sandy Koufax even more iconic was the dignity and grace with which he carried himself, both on and off the field. He was a man of few words, letting his pitching speak volumes, but when he made a statement, the world listened — as when he famously refused to pitch Game 1 of the 1965 World Series because it fell on Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the Jewish calendar. In an era before athlete activism was common, Koufax’s quiet stand resonated far beyond sports, earning him a place not only in baseball history but also in the broader narrative of American culture and conscience.

The 1965 season might well have been the summit of Koufax’s astonishing career. Battling severe pain from chronic arthritis that increasingly ravaged his left elbow — to the point where he was reportedly taking cortisone shots and pitching with his arm practically numb — Koufax still managed to hurl 335 innings, post a 26-8 record, rack up 382 strikeouts (a National League record that stood for decades), and capture another Cy Young Award. In the 1965 World Series against the Minnesota Twins, Koufax delivered one of the gutsiest performances in sports history.

With the series tied, he pitched a complete-game shutout in Game 5 on just two days’ rest, then returned in Game 7 to blank the Twins again with a masterclass of pitching brilliance, securing the championship for the Dodgers. Koufax didn’t just win; he conquered pain, he conquered fatigue, he conquered expectation. He rose above every conceivable challenge, transforming suffering into legend with every perfect curveball that snapped across the plate, every batter he froze in stunned admiration.

But greatness often comes at a price, and for Sandy Koufax, that price was his career. After the 1966 season — another Cy Young-winning, ERA-leading, strikeout-dominating campaign — Koufax made the heartbreaking decision to retire at just 30 years old, rather than risk permanent damage to his arm.

Despite the abrupt end, Koufax's impact was everlasting. In 1972, he was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame as the youngest player ever elected at the time, a testament to the seismic magnitude of his brief yet blindingly brilliant career. Koufax’s statistics are mesmerizing on their own — a career ERA of 2.76, 2,396 strikeouts, four no-hitters, a perfect game, three Cy Young Awards, two World Series MVPs — but numbers only tell part of the story. His career was a comet across the baseball sky, burning bright and fast, leaving behind a trail of wonder that no one could ever forget.

Even decades after his retirement, his name remains synonymous with the highest ideals of sportsmanship, excellence, and humility. The sight of Sandy Koufax, in those crisp Dodger blues, pausing mid-delivery with that classic high leg kick, before unleashing a pitch that seemed to defy the laws of physics, is seared into the collective memory of baseball fans everywhere. His legend is renewed every time a young pitcher dreams of perfect mechanics, or an athlete chooses principle over profit, or a fan whispers in awe about "the Left Arm of God."

Beyond his pitching, Koufax’s mystique was also built on his aura of quiet elegance. In an era when celebrity often meant flamboyance, Koufax was fiercely private, almost enigmatic. He shunned the spotlight after retirement, declining interviews and public appearances, allowing his myth to grow organically rather than through self-promotion. That decision only fueled the fascination surrounding him; he became not just a hero, but a symbol of a purer time, when greatness spoke for itself.

And yet, when he did appear — as he did during the Dodgers’ milestone celebrations, or when offering wisdom to the next generation of pitchers — the reverence in the air was palpable. Sandy Koufax wasn’t merely admired; he was revered, like a sacred relic of baseball’s golden age.

Even among his peers, Koufax’s greatness inspired almost spiritual awe. Hank Aaron once said hitting against Koufax was like "drinking coffee with a fork," and Willie Mays called him the toughest pitcher he ever faced. When the greatest players in history speak of you in such tones, you know you have touched something eternal.

Today, more than half a century after he last threw a pitch in anger, Sandy Koufax’s legacy endures not just because of the astonishing records or the glittering accolades, but because of the purity of his excellence. He showed the world that greatness isn’t about longevity alone; sometimes, it’s about shining so brightly, so intensely, that your light can never be extinguished. Sandy Koufax didn’t just play baseball — he elevated it into an art form, a nearly spiritual experience for those fortunate enough to witness it.

His career was a triumph of talent, willpower, grace, and integrity, and his story remains a golden thread woven into the rich tapestry of American sports history. For every kid picking up a baseball and dreaming of greatness, Sandy Koufax remains the ultimate, almost mythic, inspiration — proof that even if your time is short, you can still touch eternity.

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Pete Rose, 'Shoeless' Joe Jackson among players reinstated by MLB

 

In a historic, sweeping decision, baseball commissioner Rob Manfred on Tuesday removed Pete Rose, "Shoeless" Joe Jackson and other deceased players from Major League Baseball's permanently ineligible list.

The all-time hit king and Jackson -- both longtime baseball pariahs stained by gambling, seen by MLB as the game's mortal sin -- are now presumably eligible for election into the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York.

Manfred ruled that MLB's punishment of banned individuals ends upon their deaths.

"Obviously, a person no longer with us cannot represent a threat to the integrity of the game," Manfred wrote in a letter to attorney Jeffrey M. Lenkov, who petitioned for Rose's removal from the list Jan. 8. "Moreover, it is hard to conceive of a penalty that has more deterrent effect than one that lasts a lifetime with no reprieve.

"Therefore, I have concluded that permanent ineligibility ends upon the passing of the disciplined individual, and Mr. Rose will be removed from the permanently ineligible list."

Manfred's decision ends the ban that Rose accepted from then-Commissioner A. Bartlett Giamatti in August 1989, following an MLB investigation that determined the 17-time All-Star had bet on games while managing the Cincinnati Reds.

Jackson and seven other Chicago White Sox were banned from playing professional baseball in 1921 by MLB's first commissioner, Kenesaw Mountain Landis, for fixing the 1919 World Series.

Based on current rules for players who last played more than 15 years ago, it appears the earliest Rose and Jackson could be enshrined is summer 2028 if they are elected.

Manfred's ruling removes a total of 16 deceased players and one deceased owner from MLB's banned list, a group that includes Jackson's teammates, ace pitcher Eddie Cicotte and third baseman George "Buck" Weaver. The so-called "Black Sox Scandal" is one of the darkest chapters in baseball history, the subject of books and the 1988 film, "Eight Men Out."

In 1991, shortly before Rose's first year of Hall of Fame eligibility, the Hall's board decided any player on MLB's permanently ineligible list would also be ineligible for election. It became known as "the Pete Rose rule."

Rose believed his banishment would be lifted after a year or two, but it became a lifetime sentence. For "Shoeless" Joe Jackson, who died in 1951, the ban became an eternal sentence, until Tuesday.

Jackson was considered for decades by voters, but Pete Rose's name has never appeared on a Hall of Fame ballot. He died in September at age 83.

Nearly a decade ago, Lenkov began a campaign to get Rose reinstated. On Dec. 17, Pete Rose's eldest daughter, Fawn, and Lenkov appealed to Manfred and MLB chief communications officer Pat Courtney during an hourlong meeting at MLB's midtown Manhattan headquarters.

"This has been a long journey," Lenkov said. "On behalf of the family, they are very proud and pleased and know that their father would have been overjoyed at this decision today."

Jane Forbes Clark, chairman of the board of the Hall of Fame, said Manfred's decision will allow Rose, Jackson and others to be considered by the Historical Overview Committee, which will "develop the ballot of eight names for the Classic Baseball Era Committee ... to vote on when it meets next in December 2027."

Lenkov said he and Rose's family intend to petition the Hall of Fame for induction as soon as possible.

"My next step is to respectfully confer with the Hall and discuss ... Pete's induction into the Hall of Fame," Lenkov said. The attorney said he and Rose's family will attend Pete Rose Night on Wednesday at Cincinnati's Great American Ball Park.

"Reds Nation will not only be able to celebrate Pete's legacy, but now optimistically be able to look forward to the possibility that Pete will join other baseball immortals," Lenkov said. "Pete Rose would have for sure been overjoyed at the outpouring of support from all."

Rose and Jackson's candidacies presumably will be decided by the Hall's 16-member Classic Baseball Era Committee, which considers players whose careers ended more than 15 years ago. The committee isn't scheduled to meet again until December 2027. Rose and Jackson would need 12 of 16 votes to win induction.

Jackson had a career batting average of .356, the fourth highest in MLB history. After his death, Jackson's fans, including state legislators in South Carolina, launched numerous public and petition-writing campaigns arguing that Jackson deserved a plaque in the Hall of Fame. Despite accepting $5,000 in gamblers' cash to throw the 1919 World Series, Jackson batted .375, didn't make an error and hit the series' only home run.

Across the decades and among millions of baseball fans, especially in Cincinnati where Rose was born and played most of his career, the clamor over the pugnacious, stubborn legend's banishment from baseball and the Hall became louder, angrier and increasingly impatient.

Few players in baseball history had more remarkable careers than Pete Rose. He was an exuberant competitor who played the game with sharp-elbowed abandon and relentless hustle. Rose, whose lifetime batting average was .303, is Major League Baseball's career leader in hits (4,256), games played (3,562), at-bats (14,053), singles (3,215) and outs (10,328). He won the World Series three times -- twice with the Reds and once with the Philadelphia Phillies.

Rose often said -- and stat experts agree -- that he won more regular-season games (1,972) than any major league baseball player or professional athlete in history. He also won three batting titles, two Gold Glove Awards, the Most Valuable Player Award and the Rookie of the Year Award.

In 2015, shortly after Manfred succeeded Bud Selig as commissioner, Rose applied for reinstatement with MLB. Manfred met with Rose, who first told the commissioner he had stopped gambling but then admitted he still wagered legally on sports, including baseball, in his adopted hometown of Las Vegas.

Manfred rejected Rose's bid for reinstatement after concluding he had failed to "reconfigure his life," a requirement for reinstatement set by Giamatti. Allowing Rose back into baseball was an "unacceptable risk of a future violation ... and thus to the integrity of our sport," Manfred declared on Dec. 14, 2015.

Rose often complained that the ban prevented him from working with young hitters in minor league ballparks. On Feb. 5, 2020, Rose's representatives filed another reinstatement petition, arguing that the commissioner's decision to level no punishment against the World Series champion Houston Astros players for electronic sign stealing was unfair to Rose. "There cannot be one set of rules for Mr. Rose," the 20-page petition argued, "and another for everyone else."

But Manfred, who did not meet again with Rose, chose not to rule on that second appeal prior to Rose's death on Sept. 30, 2024.

Earlier this year, President Donald Trump announced he planned to posthumously pardon Rose. "Over the next few weeks I will be signing a complete PARDON of Pete Rose, who shouldn't have been gambling on baseball, but only bet on HIS TEAM WINNING," Trump wrote on social media Feb. 28.

Off MLB's Banned List

• Joe Jackson (1919 Black Sox scandal)

• Buck Weaver (Black Sox)

• Eddie Cicotte (Black Sox)

• Lefty Williams (Black Sox)

• Happy Felsch (Black Sox)

• Fred McMullin (Black Sox)

• Swede Risberg (Black Sox)

• Chick Gandil (Black Sox)

• Joe Gedeon (Had "guilty knowledge" of gambling activity in 1919)

• Gene Paulette (Banned in 1920 for associating with gamblers in 1919)

• Benny Kauff (Banned in 1921 despite his acquittal on auto theft charge. Commissioner Kennesaw Mountain Landis deemed him "no longer a fit companion for other ballplayers."

• Lee Magee (Banned in 1921 over his disputed back salary elicited evidence of his gambling involvement)

• Shufflin' Phil Douglas (New York Giants player banned after threatening his manager)

• Jimmy O'Connell, Giants player banned in 1924 after offering a bribe to another player)

• Cozy Dolan (Giants coach involved in the O'Connell incident)

• William Cox (Phillies' owner, banned and forced to sell the team in 1943 for betting on baseball)

• Pete Rose (Bet on baseball)

Source: MLB

John Dowd, the former Justice Department attorney who conducted MLB's Rose investigation, told ESPN in 2020 he believes Jackson belongs in the Hall, but recently said he disagrees with Manfred's decision on Rose. "There's no difference with him being dead -- it's about behavior, conduct and reputation," Dowd said.

Dowd's inquiry found Rose had wagered on 52 Reds games and hundreds of other baseball games in 1987 while serving as Cincinnati's manager. Giamatti then banned Rose from baseball permanently on Aug. 23, 1989.

When asked at a press conference whether Rose's punishment should keep him out of the Hall of Fame, Giamatti said that he'd leave that decision to the baseball writers who vote every year on players eligible for induction.

"This episode has been about, in many ways ... taking responsibility and taking responsibility for one's acts," said Giamatti, a Renaissance scholar and former Yale president. "I know I need not point out to the baseball writers of America that it is their responsibility to decide who goes into the Hall of Fame. It is not mine."

In his letter Tuesday, Manfred referred to the Giamatti quote and said he agrees "it is not part of my authority or responsibility to express any view concerning Mr. Rose's ... possible election to the Hall of Fame. I agree with Commissioner Giamatti that responsibility for that decision lies with the Hall of Fame."

Giamatti had said Rose's only path back into the game was to "reconfigure his life," a not-so-subtle hint that if Rose continued to bet on baseball, he had no shot to return to the game.

Only eight days after announcing the ban, Giamatti died of a heart attack at 51. His deputy and successor, Fay Vincent, adamantly opposed Rose's reinstatement -- both during his tenure as commissioner (until 1992) and until his death three months ago at age 86.

Rose was his own worst enemy. For nearly 15 years, he denied having placed a single bet on baseball. In the early 2000s, then-commissioner Bud Selig offered Rose a chance -- but with conditions, including admitting that he gambled on baseball, making no casino appearances and stopping all gambling.

Rose declined.

In January 2004, he admitted in his book, "My Prison Without Bars," that he had gambled on baseball as the Reds manager. But he insisted he only bet on his team to win. In 2015, ESPN reported that a notebook seized from a Rose associate showed Rose had also wagered on baseball while still a player, something he would not acknowledge.

Rose's illegal gambling and prison time aren't the only stains on a legacy that might be weighed by Hall of Fame voters, a group instructed to consider integrity, sportsmanship and character.

In 2017, a woman's sworn statement accused Rose of statutory rape; she said they began having sex when she was 14 or 15 and Rose was in his 30s. Rose said he thought she was 16 -- the age of consent in Ohio at the time. Two days later, the Philadelphia Phillies announced the cancellation of Rose's Wall of Fame induction.

In January 2020, ESPN reported that for all practical purposes, Manfred viewed baseball's banned list as punishing players during their lifetime but ending upon their death. However, Hall of Fame representatives have said that a player who dies while still on the banned list remains ineligible for consideration. With his 2020 reinstatement application sitting on Manfred's desk, Rose was granted permission by MLB to be honored at a celebration of the 1980 Philadelphia Phillies World Series championship on Aug. 7, 2022.

In the dugout before fans gave Rose a lengthy standing ovation, a newspaper reporter asked him about the 2017 allegation and whether his involvement in that day's celebration sent a negative message to women.

"No, I'm not here to talk about that," Rose replied to her. "Sorry about that. It was 55 years ago, babe."

The public backlash to Rose's remarks was swift and severe. MLB sources said his comments derailed his campaign to get off the ineligible list.

In the past several years, some fans have become more insistent that Rose should be forgiven by MLB and inducted into the Hall of Fame. One reason is America's love affair with sports betting. As MLB has embraced legalized gambling through sponsorships and partnerships -- like all U.S. professional sports -- some fans and commentators complained that Rose deserves a second chance, echoing an argument Rose often made.

"I thought we lived in a country where you're given a second chance, but not as far as gambling's concerned," Rose said in a 2020 interview with ESPN. He estimated the ban cost him at least $80 million in earnings as an MLB manager.

Rose, who signed baseballs and jerseys for years in memorabilia stores inside Las Vegas casinos and in Cooperstown on Hall of Fame induction weekends, gambled legally on sports nearly every day for the rest of his life.

Asked how much money his gambling had cost him, Rose said he didn't know, though he acknowledged he lost far more than he won. "No one wins at gambling," said Rose.

"I'm the one that's lost 30 years," he told ESPN in the 2020 documentary "Backstory: Banned for Life*." "Just to take baseball out of my heart penalized me more than you could imagine. You understand what I'm saying? ... I don't think there's ever been a player, I could be wrong, I don't think there's ever been a player that loved the game like I did. You could tell I loved the game, the way I played the game.

"So then you take that away from somebody. I'm able to hide it on the outside, but it's ate me up inside, for all those years. Hell, you'd think I was Al Capone. I'm Pete Rose -- played more games than anybody, batted more than anybody ... OK? Got more hits than anybody. I am the biggest winner in the history of sports."

Last September, in his last interview 10 days before his death, Rose told sportscaster John Condit: "I've come to the conclusion -- I hope I'm wrong -- that I'll make the Hall of Fame after I die. Which I totally disagree with, because the Hall of Fame is for two reasons: your fans and your family. ... And it's for your family if you're here. It's for your fans if you're here. Not if you're 10 feet under. You understand what I'm saying?"

"What good is it going to do me or my fans if they put me in the Hall of Fame a couple years after I pass away?" Rose told Condit. "What's the point? What's the point? Because they'll make money over it?"

ESPN's William Weinbaum and John Mastroberardino contributed to this report.

 

Was Babe Ruth the Best Baseball Player Ever? by Christopher Sean

 

Any debate over whether Babe Ruth was the greatest ever is eventually going to boil down to how much more competitive one thinks the game is today as compared to Ruth's day. I know many of you already have strong opinions about this and couldn't give a **** what I think, but here it is anyway.

For me, I find it impossible to believe that Ruth's game was as competitive as today's game. I have always believed that Ruth, Gehrig, Walter Johnson, Wagner, Cobb, etc., were very talented individuals who were able to exploit the relative lack of talent in their leagues to put up numbers that, when adjusted for era, have them standing further away from their peers than any modern player could ever hope to achieve. Simply put: the easiest way to appear great is to play against crappy competition.

I base this belief on several things:

First: Racial and geographic factors once limited the population pool from which players could be selected. You'll find more major league talents in a population of 4 million than you will in a population of 500,000. No black, Latino, or even white players from the West Coast would have limited the talent pool in Ruth's day, enough to offset any diluting factors that modern league expansion has wrought.

Second: Scouting then was less sophisticated than it is today, and so it would have been more difficult to identify the best players from the population pool, further limiting the level of competition. (When Ruth was a rookie, the American League was only 10 years removed from the time where, if a team ran out of players, they'd go into the stands, ask if there were any ball players in the stadium, and slap a uniform on a semi-pro player who happened to be in the crowd. That's major league baseball?)

Third: The lack of a breeding-ground minor league farm system (the minors then were independent and not yet slaves to the major leagues) would have made it impossible to "funnel" and consolidate all the best talents into the majors, as is the situation now.

Fourth: Medical science can now save the careers of top talents that would otherwise have been lost forever. Players back then got hurt too, just like players today. You never heard of them, because they got hurt and never played again and went back to the farm or the coal mines and died in obscurity. How many talents were lost that could have been saved with today's medicine? Take just Tommy John surgery alone, for example. Something like 1 in 9 pitchers in the big leagues today have had Tommy John surgery for torn ligaments - an injury that, prior to 1972, would have flat ended anybody's career. How many mysterious "dead arms" of the past could have been saved? Pitchers can now come back as good as new - in fact, often even BETTER than they were before - about 80% of the time with Tommy John surgery.

Fifth: Look at team winning percentages then and now. The standard deviation of winning percentages has been decreasing over time, and is smaller, now, than it has ever been. There is less of a gap in winning percentage between the best teams and the worst teams, now, then there has ever been in times past. It's true; get out a copy of the Baseball Encyclopedia, look up team winning percentages year by year since 1872, plug those into Excel, and graph it out.

So, I really don't think that it is just idle speculation that the league is more competitive than it used to be - it seems to be a statistical reality. All this in an era when the financial gap between the richest and poorest teams is bigger than it has ever been. And in an era of free agency - non-existent in Ruth's time!

So now, we have a situation where the richest teams are richer than the poorest teams by the greatest margin in history - AND we have a situation where the richest teams are free to gobble up the best players like no other time in history. By all rights, there should be the biggest gap ever in team winning percentages - we should be living in the LEAST competitive baseball era ever - yet the exact opposite is true.

If that doesn't convince you that today's players are more tightly clustered than ever in terms of talent and ability, then I got little left to convince ANYONE, honestly!!!!!

Anyway, I don't know for certain how MUCH worse the league was then than it is now. Who does? I will say this - the gap between Ruth and his contemporaries is bigger than for any other player ever. Well, Barry Bonds... but Bonds has only opened the gap between himself and his peers in the last 4 years, whereas Ruth's CAREER value was always leaps and bounds ahead of the rest of the league.

How much of that was due to the lack of competition? I don't know. Maybe I overestimated how much more competitive things are today. Maybe, even after adjusting for the relatively less stiff competition, Ruth was STILL so much better than his peers that he is still the greatest ever. I don't know for sure. Who does? Nobody.

I will say this. I balk at choosing any player pre-1950 as the greatest ever. I don't look at a minor league player who batted .380 and wonder, "Is he better than Tony Gwynn, who batted .338 in the majors? Well, let's see. Gwynn had a higher level of competition to succeed against. But HOW much higher? Is it possible that a .380 average, after adjusting for the weaker league, is a more impressive accomplishment?"

I don't ask these types of questions because it seems to me that a minor leaguer shouldn't even be compared to a major leaguer. You compare a major leaguer to a major leaguer. Let Joe .380 succeed at the highest level of competition, THEN we'll evaluate him. If you want to be the best, you must beat the best. Obliterating second-rate foes is great, but I don't want to start trying to figure out how much weaker the second-rate foes are than the first-rate foes, and then start trying to figure out what the performance WOULD have been against top-shelf competition, if only it had been available.

So, for me, I'd start with post-1950 players, because that's when the league became fully integrated, and the modern farm system was in full effect. I'd pick guys like Mantle, because he was the best player of the 50's; Willie Mays and Hank Aaron, because they were the best players of the 60's; Mike Schmidt, because he was the best player of the 70's and 80's (yeah that's right, Mike Schmidt!); and Bonds, who was the best player of the 90's - even before his steroid-fueled transformation.

One last thing I want to say... you can who toss out my argument about level of league competition and pick Ruth as the best ever, but then you need to explain why Josh Gibson WASN'T the best ever. He had better numbers than Ruth did, in the Negro Leagues. How about 800 home runs and a .350 average in 17 seasons? Or 80 home runs and a .400+ average in 1936?

"Hey, no fair arguing that the Negro Leagues wasn't as competitive as the major leagues!" Arguing level of competition supports MY argument. Toss out league competitiveness and you're pigeon holed into accepting that Gibson was better than Ruth. Anyhow, lots of white players saw Gibson and said he was Ruth's equal as a hitter - and these were the 1930's, so there was no political correctness at work when they made these statements. They simply gave their honest evaluation.

Ruth's "Trump Card" is that he was also a very good pitcher - for 4 years. But did I mention that Gibson was a CATCHER? Wrap your head around that one. He played the most important defensive position on the diamond, and the most physically exhausting one, for 17 years. Does that trump Ruth's 4 years as a pitcher? Hard to say, but a very good argument could be made. You might wonder how much better Ruth might have been had he lived a more disciplined lifestyle. No dice. Gibson was an alcoholic, and a heroin addict later, who died at age 35.

 

(Slightly off topic: according to the book "Babe Ruth's Own Book of Baseball" (a very interesting read!) Ruth (or his ghost writer) says that after the 1925 season - his worst ever, at the age of 30 - Ruth put an end to his excesses of partying and drinking. Ruth (or his ghost) says that he had been able to get away with all that debauchery without his play suffering on account of his youth; but by age 30, it finally caught up with him, and he had his worst season ever. Amidst rumors that he was washed up, Ruth spent the entire winter in the gym boxing and doing aerobics and calisthenics, and bounced back to top form in 1926. 1927 you all know about. Ruth says after that, he stopped overeating and partying and has always spent the offseason exercising. So, maybe he wasn't as undisciplined as we think. He was productive all the way to age 37, you know.)

-Christopher Sean

Hero Jim Rice

 

August 8, 1982

A line drive foul ball hits a four-year-old boy in the head at Fenway. Jim Rice, realizing in a flash that it would take EMTs too long to arrive and cut through the crowd, sprang from the dugout and scooped up the boy. 

He laid the boy gently on the dugout floor, where the Red Sox medical team began to treat him. When the boy arrived at the hospital 30 minutes later, doctors said, without a doubt that Jim's prompt actions saved the boy's life. Jim returned to the game in a blood-stained uniform. A real badge of courage. 

After visiting the boy in the hospital, and realizing the family was of modest means, he stopped by the business office and instructed that the bill be sent to him.

Willie Mays

Willie Mays, a perennial all-star center fielder for the New York and San Francisco Giants in the 1950s and ’60s whose powerful bat, superb athletic grace and crafty baseball acumen earned him a place with Babe Ruth atop the game’s roster of historic greats, died June 18. He was 93.

The San Francisco Giants announced his death on social media but did not provide other details. Mr. Mays was the oldest living member of the National Baseball Hall of Fame.

“If there was a guy born to play baseball,” Boston Red Sox legend Ted Williams, one of his 1950s contemporaries, said late in life, “it was Willie Mays.”

With such demigods as Jackie Robinson and Hank Aaron, Mr. Mays, from Jim Crow-era Alabama, was one of the earliest Black players to reach exalted heights in the formerly segregated major leagues. His body of work from 1951 to 1973 included 660 home runs — then the third most of all time — despite a nearly two-year absence for military service.

Baseball has had 150-plus players with higher career batting averages than Mr. Mays’s. There have been swifter base runners and a few more-prolific sluggers over the decades. But Mr. Mays could do it all: The record book says no one showcased a more formidable combination of power, speed, arm strength, wizardry with a glove and steady hitting than No. 24 of the Giants, whom many regard as the best defensive center fielder ever.

Most devotees of hardball history consider Mr. Mays second to Ruth in the game’s pantheon. Some rank Mr. Mays ahead of Ruth, an ace pitcher turned outfielder for the New York Yankees who revolutionized the sport with his titanic bat in the Jazz Age. Advocates for Mr. Mays argue that Ruth didn’t possess Mr. Mays’s all-around skills and never had to compete against Black major leaguers.

At 20, Mr. Mays was National League rookie of the year and helped the Giants reach the 1951 World Series. His 3,293 career hits — including 10 hits in the old Negro American League that were added to his total in 2024 — gave him a robust .301 lifetime average. He was named to 24 All Star teams in 18 seasons, some in years when two such games were played.

While a lot of sluggers were brawny and less than nimble in the field, Mr. Mays, listed on Major League Baseball’s website as 5-foot-11 and 180 pounds, dominated opponents with his glove, legs and throwing arm. A miraculous catch he made in the 1954 World Series, racing toward the center field wall with his back fully turned to the infield, is among the most celebrated plays in the annals of the sport.

Starting in 1957, Mr. Mays won 12 consecutive Gold Glove awards for defensive excellence in center field, the most spacious position, where quick reactions and fleetness of foot are paramount. He collected more Gold Gloves than any other center fielder in history, even though the award didn’t exist until his fifth full season.

At the same time, his disruptive speed and guile as a base runner augured a revival of an undervalued aspect of the game.

In the 1950s, a decade loaded with fearsome hitters, the “small ball” tactic of base stealing was mostly an afterthought — but not for Mr. Mays, the first player with 300 or more career home runs to also tally at least 300 thefts (he swiped 339 bases). Only seven others have done it since. Although his yearly totals weren’t jaw-dropping by later standards, he stole more bases (179) in the 1950s than anyone else in the majors.

“Willie Mays is the greatest player I ever laid eyes on,” declared his first Giants manager, Leo Durocher, a teammate of Ruth’s in the late-1920s.

After Robinson broke baseball’s racial barrier in 1947 with the Brooklyn Dodgers, Mr. Mays, three weeks out of his teens, became the 17th Black player to arrive in the big leagues. He debuted for the New York Giants on May 25, 1951, and went hitless in 12 at-bats on the road. Then, in his first plate appearance at the Polo Grounds, the Giants’ old ballpark in Upper Manhattan, he recorded his first hit — “a towering poke that landed atop the left-field roof,” the New York Times reported.

Counting the home run, Mr. Mays, a right-handed batter, began his career 1-for-26, a miserable stretch. “I was crying,” he recalled almost 70 years later. “I wanted to go back” to minor league Minneapolis. But Durocher kept him in the lineup, insisting, “Son, you’re my center fielder.” After Mr. Mays found his stroke, he finished his rookie season with 20 homers and a .274 average.

In scouting parlance, he emerged as “a five-tool player,” with exceptional abilities to hit for power, hit for average, run, field and throw. Yet plenty of five-tool stars have come and gone. What made Mr. Mays transcendent were the dazzling degrees to which he excelled at all five skills for the better part of two decades.

Known for his full-throttle energy on the diamond, his joy and brio, Mr. Mays was a headliner in the postwar golden era of New York baseball, before the Giants and Dodgers decamped to San Francisco and Los Angeles to start the 1958 season. During that Gotham heyday, one or two of the city’s three ballclubs, led by the dynastic Yankees, played in 10 World Series in 11 years — including seven “subway series” — and each team featured a Hall of Fame-bound center fielder.

“Willie, Mickey and the Duke,” the song goes: Mickey Mantle (and before him Joe DiMaggio) of the Yanks, Brooklyn’s Duke Snider and Mr. Mays, who as a rookie would often play stickball with youngsters in front of his Harlem rooming house. Afterward, he’d treat the kids to ice cream, then walk to work at the Polo Grounds.

“Snider, Mantle and Mays — you could get a fat lip in any saloon by starting an argument as to which was best,” columnist Red Smith reminisced in 1972. “One point was beyond argument, though: Willie was by all odds the most exciting.”

In the outfield, where the durable Mr. Mays compiled a record 7,112 putouts, he caught a lot of balls unconventionally, holding his glove near his belt buckle for his signature “basket catch.” And he admitted to wearing ill-fitting caps to ensure that he would run out from under them as he dashed around the bases or chased a long flyball.

“You have to entertain people,” he told sportscaster Bob Costas in 2006. “That’s what I wanted to do all the time.”

Mr. Mays’s nickname, the “Say Hey Kid,” was bestowed by a New York sportswriter who noted the young player’s habit of chirping “hey” when he had something to say (as in “Hey, how you doin'?” and “Hey, where you been?”), according to biographer James S. Hirsch, author of “Willie Mays: The Life, the Legend,” published in 2010.

With 660 career homers, Mr. Mays ranked third, behind Aaron and Ruth, until 2004, when the Giants’ Barry Bonds — Mr. Mays’s godson — eclipsed him. In 2015, Alex Rodriguez also passed Mr. Mays in home runs. But Rodriguez and Bonds were tainted by evidence of illicit steroids use. Albert Pujols, who has never been credibly linked to steroids, hit his 661st homer in 2020, dropping Mr. Mays to sixth on the all-time list.

Always averse to controversy, Mr. Mays professed to have no opinion about ballplayers who used performance-enhancing drugs. “I don’t even know what that stuff is,” he said. On April 12, 2004, when Bonds, under a cloud of suspicion, launched his 660th home run, his 72-year-old godfather walked on the field to embrace him… 

-The Washington Post, Paul Duggan

Willie Mays, baseball star of prodigious power and grace, dies at 93 - The Washington Post

 "The only man who could have caught that ball just hit it." - Remembering Willie Howard Mays

“Mays is the only man in baseball I’d pay to see play.” — Ty Cobb

 “Willie Mays is the greatest ballplayer I’ve ever seen. I never saw Joe DiMaggio play, but if Joe DiMaggio was better than Willie Mays, he belongs in Heaven.” — Roberto Clemente

 “Outside of Joe DiMaggio, Willie Mays is the greatest all-around baseball player of my time. Certainly, he’s been the most daring. Mays would steal home, a tough play and one in which you’ve got a great chance to look bad. Willie didn’t even think of that, he’d just go. Nine times out of ten, he’d make it.” — Mickey Mantle

“You used to think if the score was 5-0, [Mays] would hit a five-run homer.” — Reggie Jackson

“[Mays] scooped the ball up at the base of the 406-foot sign, whirled and fired. It came in on one bounce, directly in front of the plate, and into the glove of catcher Tom Haller, who put it on the astonished Willie Stargell. It was described by old-timers as the greatest throw ever made in ancient Forbes Field.” — Bob Stevens, San Francisco Chronicle, August 25, 1965

“I couldn’t believe Mays could throw that far. I figured there had to be a relay. Then I found out there wasn’t. He’s too good for this world.” — Willie Stargell

“They invented the All-Star Game for Willie Mays.” — Ted Williams

“Willie Mays, to me, was the best ballplayer I ever saw in my life. …Nobody in the history of baseball is going to see anyone like Willie Mays. Everybody loved Willie in the clubhouse. Willie used to do a lot of things for different players, especially the rookies. Willie used to take players to clothing stores to buy them clothes. Sometimes he would get free clothes, shoes, and stuff, and give them to the players. He was like the mother of the team.” - Juan Marichal

"Willie Mays was to me the greatest player I ever watched. People ask me that, and I don't hesitate....he could have been an All-Star shortstop, that's how good an athlete he was...he could run backwards as fast as he could forward." - Don Zimmer

"If somebody came up and hit .450, stole 100 bases, and performed a miracle in the field every day, I'd still look you right in the eye and tell you that Willie was better” - Leo Durocher

"The best Major League ballplayer I ever saw was Willie Mays. Ruth beat you with the bat. Ted Williams beat you with the bat. Joe DiMaggio beat you with the bat, his glove and his arm. But Willie Mays could beat you with the bat, with power, his glove, his arm and with the running. He could beat you any way that's possible." - Buck O'Neil

“Hopefully, they can say, ‘There goes the best baseball player in the world.’ I honestly believe I did everything in baseball that a baseball player can do, and I did it with love.” — Willie Mays